Organized by George Negroponte

OPENING SATURDAY JULY 16TH 6-8PM | EXHBITION DATES: JULY 16 - AUGUST 15, 2022

Paintings and works on paper by:
Lester Johnson, Virva Hinnemo, Erika Ranee, Eric Holzman, Adam Bartos and Kristy Schopper

”This exhibit is a tribute to Lester Johnson, the painter, and educator (1919 – 2010). The pairing of Lester Johnson in a single exhibit with younger, living artists is a testament to the freshness and timeliness of his work. The viscosity of Johnson's oil paint alone delivers truthfulness: raw and primal. 
Lester Johnson was a representational painter devoting most of his energies to rendering the human form. He sparred and wrangled with oil paint, head-butting his way into messy arguments about allegiances from French to American, from Hans Hofmann to Jackson Pollock, and from the heavenly to the earthbound. 
He regarded painting as the outcome of looking and seeing in the moment: seized and held still by nameless forces. Like Lester, these artists endeavor to find a way out from the muteness of fashion, the monotony of digital, and the weariness of formalities. With the fragrance of passion, the works in this show articulate substance while speaking entirely in their terms.
Virva Hinnemo, Erika Ranee, and Kristy Schopper are devotees of the physical bulge of painting. Fleshy flourishes of paint surge, catch a breath and emerge from oblivion. In a world dominated by digital specs and dots, these artists thickly elevate their medium to contain full degrees of ripeness and expressiveness.” 

~George Negroponte, July 2022